My Shingle : MyShingle : Solo and Small Law Firm Management and Marketing

As another year draws to a close, do you find yourself thinking about hanging out your own shingle? Perhaps the thought occurred to you the other night while you were polishing up a brief, wishing that you -- not the partner who isn't at all familiar with the case -- were going to argue it.

Or maybe after a year of working the temp circuit, using your Ivy League law degree to perform paralegal work, it occurred to you that you couldn't be any worse off if you started your own practice.

So what's holding you back?

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I posted on this video here. In my view and for the reasons I described in that post, it's hands down the best and most effective lawyer ad that I've seen this year, rivalling my favorite ad of 2006, by criminal defense attorney Allison Margolin, that I wrote about here.

Lights, camera, action - are you video-ready for 2008?

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For a few days now, the blogosphere has been abuzz with news of the dismissal of a class action lawsuit against lawyer directory and rating service, Avvo and the subsequent Wall Street Journal's endorsement of Avvo. These events evoked an impassioned post by respected solo-centric blogger Susan Cartier Liebel, who argues that Avvo's rating system harms solos, does not help consumers and unfairly generates investor profits off the backs of lawyers who never asked for a ratings system. As such, Cartier Liebel urges lawyers not to participate in Avvo's system. Since then, commenters to Scott Greenfield's Avvo posthave launched a debate over Avvo's benefit to consumers and its impact on solos. Though I'm a little late to this party (having been away and off the grid for two days), I wanted to chime in to make clear that not all of us solos oppose Avvo, nor should we. Here's why.

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Yes, you read my headline correctly - lawyers appreciate passion. At least, that's my official response to the Second Annual what do lawyers appreciate meme , for which I've been tagged by my friend Sheryl Schelin.

My answer may surprise you. After all, we generally, we don't associate staid lawyers with passion - unless it's kind of carnal passion like thisthat keeps bar disciplinary committees in business. But lawyers appreciate the another kind of passion: the inspired committment that the best lawyers bring to bear in representing clients, running their practices and participating in the blawgosphere. In fact, if you think about it, passion lies at the core of our profession, formally codified in our duty to zealously represent clients. What is zeal, after all, if not passion?

So how do I know that lawyers appreciate passion? Well, first and most obvious, because even though in our profession passion is in short supply, either squeezed dry by the rigorous demands of a job we don't like or the monotony of the same cases over and over again, many of us lawyers yearn to restore passion to our own practices. Second, because passion accounts for the public success and personal satisfaction of those lawyers at biglaw or their own solo practice, who practice law with joy and purpose, and in doing so, evoke our admiration. And finally, because passion drives the success of our beloved blawgosphere, home to memes such as this one. The blawgosphere depends upon the participation of hundreds of lawyers who blog their hearts out for audiences of ten or ten thousand simply out of sheer passion for exchanging and sharing ideas. And silly contests aside, for those laywers who passionately and genuinely captivate and inspire their readers, the blawgosphere bestows a wealth of riches like complimentary comments, mutual respect, intellectual satisfaction and, as Sheryl said, friendship.

That said, while I may appreciate passion in the practice of law, I don't have much passion, just patience, for memes. But I'll dutifully tag Scott Greenfield, Nathan Dosch, Bob Kraft and Ed Poll and Greatest American Lawyer. And of course, you don't need to wait for an invite - feel free to jump in and join the party as I did last year (lawyers appreciate...clients).

Update 12/24/07 made a few stylistic edits.

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My sister sent me this notice about a legal fiction writing contest sponsored by SEAK, a company that provides seminars and training for expert witnesses, lawyers and medical professionals. Either short stories or a novel excerpt of 2500 words or less qualify for submission. Entries are due March 31, 2008.

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So, guess who won the Wall Street Journal Law Blog's Lawyer of the Year contest? No, it wasn't Alberto Gonzales (the ABA's first choice , until it changed its mind, or Clarence Thomas or even the overly litigious Roy Pearson who spawned dozens of bad puns about lawyers suing the pants off businesses. Nope. As I posted here, a pseudonymous second year law student who goes by "Loyola 2L" took the prize, for his constant commentary that spotlighted the poor job prospects for graduates from lower tier law schools.

Here's why you should care about Loyola 2L's victory: because it shows the power of commenting at a highly trafficked website. And while blogs like Above the Law or WSJ Law Blog, with their immature and often frivolous remarks may not be appropriate for practicing lawyers, these blogs are far from the only game in town. For example, the WSJ also has blogs on health care issues or Business Technology. Each post lists commenters in the side bar, so if you post under your real name, you'll get some mention right on the web page itself. Plus, when readers email story links to others, recipients will view your comments as well. Most other major news outlets also have an unmoderated comment section, where you can post on a story.

Posting comments at popular blogs can give your recognition beyond the actual blog site. Your comments will show up in search engines and the reporters who've authored the posts will come to regard you as an expert for future stories.

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Here's a quick round up of some opportunities for solo and small firm lawyers.

Check out Susan Cartier-Liebel's contest, So You Want to Fly Solo. The contest, which is open to all lawyers - "newly minted or well seasoned," and current and/or wannabe solos, offers a two hour consult (value: priceless) with Susan as the grand prize. Visit the link for details on how to enter.

If you're part of what has been dubbed the Practical Blawgosphere (someone tell me who's responsible for coining this term for future accreditation), sign up to join the Wiki of the Practical Blawgosphere, described in more detail by Scott Greenfield in this post.

Though it's a bit early (and I'll be reposting this), mark your calendars for a blockbuster event that I've organized for the DC Bar's Law Practice Management Steering Committee, entitled Practicing Law in the E-Court of Public Opinion: How the Internet Can Make Or Break Your Reputation and What You Can Do About. In a profession where a negative image can harm our clients or hurt us financially, all lawyers - from solos to partners at ginormous law firms - owe it to ourselves to understand how the Internet affects our reputation. The panel features a star studded cast, with David Lat at Above the Law and Mark Britton, CEO of Avvo who will discuss both the positive and negative effects of their popular websites on lawyers' images. And the panel will also include two D.C. attorneys Andrew Mirsky and Jonathan Frieden who will respectively provide expert advice on the role of First Amendment and libel law in protecting reputation and practical ways that you can guard and enhance your image. I'll be moderating the panel. The event will be held at the D.C. Bar on January 24, 2008, and best of all, even if you're not physically in DC, you can listen in via teleconference. Here's the sign up form for this not to be missed event.

Finally, if you know of any other events, conferences or activities that might prove useful to solo and small firm lawyers, email the information to me at carolyn.elefant@gmail.com.

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With billing fraud rampant at major law firms, guess who the Illinois disciplinary committee decided to prosecute? Was it the the partners at a
Chicago office of a national firm, whose own colleague shined a light on overbilling? Nah - that's too large a target. Why not go after the smallest possible potato instead - like a $35 an hour contract attorney who allegedly overbilled by $2913.75 for work performed on a month long document review gig for Mayer Brown (a firm whose own rap sheet includes firing 45 equity partners to preserve the firm's $1 million profits-per-partner ratio and a partner just indicted on charges of criminal fraud).

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Earlier today in this post, I described my disagreement with Iowa personal injury attorney Steve Lombardi's complaints about misuse of listserves. Lombardi has now weighed in with a responsehere.

Lombardi raises one issue to which I gave short shrift: that lawyers should not blindly rely on advice offered on listserves without conducting their own independent verification. However, those lawyers who willingly accept advice from other lawyers (e.g., "The statute says X") without checking the source are the same lawyers who, in the absense of the listserve, probably wouldn't even bother to research a question to begin with (For example, I know one lawyer who will file a motion without any caselaw and then let his opponent "do the work for him" by researching and citing applicable cases in the response. Let's just say that this lawyer's clients wouldn't be any worse off if this lawyer relied on unverified advice from a listserve).

Lombardi also mentions the problem of too much listserve garbage that he claims don't interest experienced attorneys - the endless stream of "me too's" and political discussion and posts by lawyers in way over their heads. However, information overload isn't unique to listserves; it's a product of the Internet era where we're regularly inundated with a constant stream of information from listserves, blogs, news sources and RSS feeds. As lawyers, we need to find ways to manage that information, to cull the wheat from the chaff in an efficient and proactive manner. Yes, many listserves do benefit from moderators, but we lawyers must take responsibility for moderating information for ourselves. This means liberal use of mail filters, search tools and most of all, the "delete key."

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It's not going to be available until January 7, 2008, but you can preorder and get some more details here. In the meantime, this is how it looks!

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When I'm asked to list the resources that have helped improve my competency as a lawyer, I'd place blogs and listserves high on the list. In particular, the guidance that I've received from that mother-of-all-solo-listserves, Solosez has helped me tackle issues far more effectively than I could have on my own, while other feedback has enabled me to avert unwanted conflicts and difficult clients.

So I was surprised to come across this post on the misuse of listserves at the Injury Board by Iowa personal injury attorney Steve Lombardi. Lombardi writes:

But the lawyer LISTSERV has become a place where lazy lawyers fool themselves into thinking they can get questions answered and avoid associating with more qualified lawyers. I suspect they do this for several reasons, none worthy of discussion because no excuse is good enough for me when the client's interests are being subjugated to the lawyer's...The lawyers I'm referring to who misuse the LISTSERV are lawyers with enough experience to know better. They are usually on their own, sole practitioners with a history of taking cases they have no business taking and who regularly settle cases without ever trying one. They advertise themselves as being trial lawyers but have very little trial experience.

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Under legal ethics principles, a clients' right to the attorney of their choosing trumps even the economic interest of the firm representing the client. For that reason, firms cannot force lawyers to enter into non-compete agreements or impose onerous restrictions that would prevent a client from following a departing attorney to another firm or to his own practice. Were it not for the principle of client choice, the increasing trend of "biglaw to yourlaw attorneys" (that I've described in various posts )here would stop dead in its tracks since most big firm attorneys are generally manage to take a few clients with them, who provide a source of revenue as they grow their new firm (in fact, many large firm attorneys find that the clients who migrate with them provide them with even more work, because the attorney can charge more affordable rates as a solo). And attorneys would be forever married to a single law firm, even if another professional opportunity presented itself that was more beneficial not just for the attorney, but for his client as well.

But now comes this seemingly benign article by Professor Robert W. Hillman, entitledClient Choice, Contractual Restraints and the Market for Legal Servicesthat lays the groundwork for upending the existing scheme. Hillman writes that client choice doesn't justify the present bar to non-compete agreements because client choice is only a myth. Hillman writes that as a practical matter, the only clients who have choice are sophisticated large firm clients, while clients of lesser means may not be able to afford lawyers at all, or are forced to settle for those who charge the cheapest rates. Because client choice is a myth, Hillman suggests that there's no basis more basis in law than in any other profession (such as medicine or accounting) for prohibiting non-competes or other restraints on lawyers' ability to take clients with them when leaving a firm.

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Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity offers a great tip, echoed by What About Clients: reconnect with your business network so that you can continue to nurture and reinforce the trusted relationships that produce not only business referrals, but personal fulfillment. Taking a page from Curt Rosengren, Herz recommends that you try speaking with someone personally whom you know via email or the Internet, but haven't actually spoken with. Why don't you give it try?

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AP is reporting here on a recent study by Pew Internet and American Life Project that found that 47 percent of US adult internet users have searched for information about themselves through Google or some other search engine. That's double the percentage of users who did so in 2002. Mary Madden, a Pew research specialist quoted in the article expressed some surprise that more users don't engage in "self-searching," particularly with the increase in content that's posted about us on the Internet.

For lawyers practicing in an Internet age, self-searching isn't just an act of fun or vanity, but one of absolute business necessity. In this electronic era, we must assume that existing and prospective clients and colleagues will search for us on Google, so we need to stay ahead by always keeping on top of what's out there.

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Many of us who decide to start a law firm do so to gain autonmy and take charge of our careers; to "own, not loan" our talent. So it's no wonder that so many solo and small firm lawyers have an affinity towards blogging, which is just as empowering as starting a law firm. For example, over at my Legal Blogwatch beat, I wrote about how blogging offers an antidote to depression by giving lawyers a voice:

For lawyers who aren't necessarily clinically depressed (which is a serious illness requiring medical intervention and professional help), but feeling angst or lingering malaise, one possible antidote (and by far, not the only one) is... blogging. Whereas law practice enslaves lawyers, blogging empowers, giving lawyers a unique voice in a world where they usually serve as a mouthpiece for others, giving them control over a domain, even if it's just a tiny little piece of the Internet. Most importantly, blogging builds connections and conversation with others, and eradicates the sense of loneliness and isolation that serve as a breeding ground for depression.

But blogging goes beyond personal empowerment; it can create huge, life changing opportunities. In her comments to a post at Simple Justice, Sui Generis blogger, Nicole Black attributes her most recent credential as a Thomson-West book author to her blog.

But here's one of the most exciting ways that blogs can change a life. Back in July, at my Renewables Offshore blog, I posted about William Kamkwamba, a twenty year old who blogged about his experience of building a windmill for his remote village in Malawi, and as a result, helped find funding for his education. His blog was featured as a Typepad Blog of the Day and more recently, Kamkwamba was featured on the cover of the Wall Street Journal.

If you think these results can't happen to you, think again. As I've written before, some of the greatest opportunities for solos to soar happen by sheer, serendipitous accident - and if you blog, you just may find, some accidental success waiting to happen.

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When I started this blog, to read the mainstream legal media, you'd have thought that solos were the only lawyers to ever miss deadlines, violate ethics rules or commit malpractice. But I've always believed that all lawyers, from those at ginormous firms to those who practice alone, are all equally prone to making mistakes and committing malpractice. And my hunch is borne out by this article that I blogged about over at Legal Blogwatch that discusses the types of malpractice acts committed by large and small firm attorneys. The good news? Missed deadlines, once a common basis for malpractice claims against solos, are no longer as much of a problem with the advent of cheap computerized calendar systems. Now, most solos face claims for lack of competence in areas beyond their expertise. But as I wrote in my other post, I expect that with blogging and social networking, competence claims will be reduced as well, either because lawyers will educate themselves on other practice areas through blogs, or build relationships with lawyers in different practice areas with whom they can affiliate on a case without losing the client.

For biglaw, I'm not as hopeful. Increased rates means that clients are more demanding about results; they don't want Chevy service at Ferrari rates. And multiple mergers can give rise to conflicts, and rather than letting a client leave, firms will either ignore conflicts or try to find ways to keep clients with diverse interests - which can lead to malpractice actions if a case goes south.

Of course, big firm malpractice isn't something about which we solos should gloat. Increased malpractice actions means higher premiums for all of us, regardless of size.

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Five years ago, I launched MyShingle.com with this Welcome Message, proclaiming my vision. Here's an excerpt:

What we'd like to convey here in this welcome message is our vision of MyShingle.com as a site which captures and reflects the innovative, pioneering and "can do" spirit of solo and small firm practice and gives voice, presence and respectability to solo and small firm lawyers who represent a majority of lawyers in the United States and around the world....MyShingle.com strives to carry out the trend-setting tradition of our solo and small firm colleagues. Our website is the first site devoted to non-tech legal issues built with open source slashcode, as well as the first to allow for interactive dialogue between our authors and our audience in contrast to the more traditional blogs. We seek to serve a broad audience -- solos and small firm lawyers foremost of course, but also lawyers who dream of hanging out a shingle and law students for whom solo and small firm practice might some day offer a career option. Here's the place to learn the basics about starting and running a law practice, read about solo and small law firm concerns, learn about solo and small firm accomplishments, discuss new models for collaboration between large and small firms and ponder the place that we solos and small firms occupy in the legal universe. So please join us for all this and more at MyShingle.com. Welcome.

My second observation after five years of blogging is that there's also a unique affinity between blogging and solos, which is why solo and small firm lawyers still dominate the blogosphere (even some bloggers who started out at large firms have since turned solos). Starting a law practice is a proactive step by which we lawyers take charge of our destiny and effect change in our own lives and within the legal profession. Rather than simply complain about the hierarcy of biglaw or the injustice in the legal system or the shoddy treatment that some clients receive from other lawyers, when we start a law practice, we take steps towards addressing these perceived deficiencies. And in starting a blog and staking a shingle on our own little corner in cyberspace, lawyer bloggers take proactive steps to make our voices heard, or as Kevin O'Keefe puts it, "join the conversation," even if we've not been formally invited. Just as starting a law firm empowers lawyers, so too does blogging. Out here in the blogosphere, whether we're solos, academics or biglaw attorneys, in many ways, we're all shinglers as well, asserting our control over a little piece of the universe, creating something where nothing existed before. (perhaps I should say ich bin ein Shingler?!)

I'm grateful to all of the readers of this blog - here's to many more years of blogging.

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If you're still interested in registering for the upcoming Business Building Accountabilty Club, scheduled for December 5, there's still time...up until midnight tonight. To view more details on the event and/or to register (there's no cost), visit this link. And for those who have already registered, watch for the agenda and course materials in your email tomorrow.

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